Broadway Bomb in Times Square

The bomb planted in Times Square over the weekend is being re-drawn in the media not as a terrorist failure, but rather as a heroic success.  The facts of the bomb scare suggest just the opposite is the truth.  The
bomb placement was entirely successful and undetected en route, and New York City is only lucky
that the bomb was so ineptly constructed that it did not detonate as
intended.

The media always looks for heroes to make bitter and biting stories more tolerable for the swallowing mainstream palate — and the media found their huggable bugaboos in the street vendors who noticed a “smoking and popping” SUV and in a mounted NYPD cop who just did his job by alerting others and helping clear Times Square.

When people do the right thing and do the work that earns them their pay — is that the stuff of the hero — or is that the ordinary expected?  If we see a steaming car, isn’t our duty as citizens to report what we witness?  Isn’t a cop paid to evacuate a crowd during a bomb scare?

We should not lionize those who are merely meeting the regular demands
of the dutiful citizen and those who are paid to honor a sworn duty.

In all this Times Square hero worship, we are missing the real story and the pending threat:  The bomb would have been devastating and killed every “hero” and innocent citizen in the vicinity if it had been properly rigged to work.

It’s much easier to wear the weary “hero” label in the wake of incompetence and febrile yearning.

Now we must ask the nasty, hard questions:

1.  How did that SUV make it all the way into Times Square without being noticed?

2.  Why did we have no forewarning about this impending threat?

3.  We must now pretend the bomb actually did ignite the scene and we are
required to play out that bloody scenario to its every final, evil, bits
to get a realistic taste of what is certainly in store for our future as
a free nation.

Cars are effective delivery weapons — and we
need to create a way to proactively deter these sorts of dire threats to
our security and sanctuary — and that will mean a more Panopticonic
scanning of our everyday lives in order to try to prevent the
extraordinary cruelty waiting to be inflicted upon us by those who
choose hate and loathing over loving and the light.